Great report. Love the FFS screenshots.

Hell yea i didn't log in for awhile and "there he is!"

Good post & fish

Fished the correct lake again today, and met a local named Clayton. we had some fun with FFS. Great little lake!





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Wow looks like a great trip!

Now the rest of the story.. I fished both lakes in Jacksboro two trips sunrise to sunset. The smaller "Jacksboro lake" near the airport is a hidden jem, but has a big problem. This lake is infested with sandbass, and they have decimated the bait in the lake. I have not caught a under sandie in either lake. I caught a limit yesterday and gave 15 to a local explaining to him the sandbass need to be taken to help the lake. Every bass I caught was thin, nothing was fat. This lake is small, and only started the big motor to put the boat on the trailer. Note: the boat ramp is good but there is a very shallow area between the ramp and the curtousy dock. You need to go around the submerged shallow spot, i used my trolling motor only so i didn't have a problem seeing the shallow area. The google satellite picture was taken when the lake was lower, so you can see the area I am talking about. I will add a picture of the ramp with a circled area I am referring to. Back to the lake info, it appears the sandbass are doing laps around the lake all day long. If the wind is light they don't seem to go near the banks. If the wind picks up. they go up close to the windy banks and cruise right down the edge of the grass. The lake has some really good grass around maybe 70% of the lake. This was a rock quarry and it is nothing but a big hole on the lower end, and the south end is tapered with lots of grass as it gets shallower. I went really far up the south shallow end, and there are sandbass thick up in the creek in wolfpacks. The strange thing was I didn't catch any up in the creek that I saw with the livescope. I threw baits that you might use for bass only (jerkbaits, lipless, squarebill, larger jig head with small fluke) and they did not entertain anything. I didn't use anything I would typically throw when I'm fishing the sandbass run on denton creek. I didn't go very far past the small island as I was strictly focusing on bass. After about 11am. I went down and picked on the sandbass and crossed paths with Clayton. Gave him 15 fish, and talked with him for a bit. I told him what I was doing sniping the sandbass, and asked him if he wanted to try it. We went out and caught about 6 in open water before he headed home to clean fish. Later in the afternoon the wind picked up and I went and fished the windiest banks with a megabass 110+1 clear blueish bait for top of the day, and bone colored for evening. Caught the [censored] out of sandbass, and smaller bass in the 7-10ft range close to the banks. Never got hung up once, which was nice. I did allot of looking and never saw the sandbass on the deeper bottom sections anywhere. The small schools I did see the first trip did not respond to a jigging spoon so I think they might have been bass. Every school I saw deep were moving, really think the fish are hungry and will prob not sit still. With this said I don't think it would be very easy to catch the sandbass without livescope. I only caught fish (bass & sandbass) along the edges of the lake in wind blown spots, and if it was calm they were cruising open water. I will go back, It's like fishing a big stocked pond in my opinion. This lake (jacksboro lake) flows into the larger lake to the north. The other lake doesn't have hardly any sandbass compared to this lake. All the sandbass i caught on the larger lake were (one or two) fish cruising together. This lake has schools. Take care all


Ramp take caution of shallow circled area. This is an older picture, the red circled area is under water


Sandbass schools : path that I noticed them cruising in schools. Plus there are fish in the open water, these were the ones we sniped with livescope.






Clear blue jerkbait clear skies, and bone in the morning and evening. Any jerkbait that will dig down in the 6-7 ft will work. I just like megabss because I got some at a discount. They are stupid expensive

No Crappie anywhere !!

None, zero, nada. Nothing seen on any structure or planted crappie brush that i found. They could be up in the feeder creek. Water was cold at 46-50 from end to end.

Are these sandbass within bank fishing distance? I'm currently "between boats" right now.

You can prob fish for them from the bank, but the fish I caught were on the lower end.. I was using livescope, and It would be really hard locating them. Because it's that time of the year for them to spawn, I would think they should be stacked in the inlet creek area. The feeder creek for the lake is very short, if i was without a boat I would do some looking on google earth to find access for the feeder creek. I would call the parks dept in jacksboro and ask if someone can walk into the upper end of the lake. They will have to be in there, and it should be easy pickings if you can get into there. If you are looking for something like a Kayak IM me, as I have several that will be sold this year.


Area I am talking about..

Those SB in that lake were not there years ago. It was basically dry in the early 80’s, the city was literally a day from being out of water and a rain came and we were blessed. Im a lifelong resident of Jacksboro and there was a group of locals that wanted to fish for sand bass and hauled several loads in over the course of a few years, they should have been horsewhipped for doing so. That lake was less known then than now, and it was full of bait, good bass, Crappie and channel cat, there was also a mentionable number of flatheads in there. The new lake came along around 1990, and TPWD stocked it once and pretty much left it at that. You can still catch a few crappie in both lakes once in a while, and the bowfishing is great on the new side. When you turn left and head North from the boat ramp, the west bank is our old landfill now covered in water. Many good times I had there as a kid, my mom would load my bicycle and fishing gear up, hand me a sandwich and drop me off when she went to town. I would fish that lake from the bank until baseball practice, and ride over to the fields and we would go home when done.

TCK73 thanks for the great information, would love to sit and chew the fat. I have hunted coyotes out on the Hammand ranch for a long time. Blake is the good people in my book. I plan on taking limits from the lake every trip, it will only help the lake, but the sandbass population needs to be brought into check. You guys get so much less rain than the DFW Area. I have only posted about the lake on this forum, but it will stay that way. It is truly a hidden gem, and i had so much fun fishing it. Will prob be there this week, and if i do I'll ping Clayton. If you want to chew the fat let me know. We can wet a line while we do it.

With warm regard

Brent Prosise